Can driverless cars be hacked? | The Economist

One of. the tensions in your company. is that you sell technology. to car manufacturers. who want to. and believe. they will sell personal cars. to many millions. and billions of people. over the next 5000 years. because that's. how it's worked. And you also sell. your technology to robotaxi. companies who believe. that they will. eventually eliminate. the need to. own a private car. Everything will become. lovely centralized fleets. of purpose built robotaxis. I'm going to make you. pick a winner Right. Whose vision of a future. is right there.

Are we going to be. owning our own cars. even once. This technology. is fully mature. and we don't need. a steering wheel. Or are we actually going. to be shifting to you. Push a button. A car shows up. It takes you where. you need to go. You jump out. and you never. worry about driving again. Both. So the key thing. is that all. of those applications. require cars. which require manufacturers. So manufacturers. are not going away. in a robotaxi world. because it's really hard. to build. You know. there's about 60 million. personal cars built a year. It's really hard. to build. that volume of vehicles.

around the world. And so manufacturers. a world class are doing that. And we're going. to see both applications. I mean today Uber. has about 10 million drivers. on their platform. And there are over. a billion cars in the world. So you know. even if ride. hailing grows by 1. or 2 orders of magnitude. there's still going. to be an enormous. market for. for consumer vehicles. So you. really are going to see both. But interestingly.

with with robotaxis. I think in the. in the short. medium term. we're going to see. commercially owned fleets. And I. actually think. hybrid networks. that have robotaxis. and human driven. taxis are going to be. be more efficient. because ride. hailing is very peaky. And so if you have robotaxis. that serve the peak. you're going to have. very underutilized assets. And one of the reasons. why Uber. and other networks work. so well was because. they're. you know. they don't own the assets.

and people can. bring their own cars. and driving services. onto the platform. when they want to monetize. and effectively. make sure that they're. more efficient. during those peak times. This feels like a description. of waves impact on society. where you slot. into the existing mix. and not much changes. But everything is now level. four and driverless. which strikes me. as implausible. because if human. drivers steadily. drop off the road. I cannot imagine.

that the fabric of society. will continue. to look the same. How will we. see the difference. As this technology. matures and rolls out. and human drivers. steadily drop away. What will be different. in this view of North. London. Well so I'm not saying. the distribution will will. I will say the same. I think we're going to see. we are going. to see increasing. adoption of ride. hailing particularly. when you get that price. below a dollar a mile. And major cities like London. you know the demand. I think. is going to significantly.

go up. I think we'll see reduced. personal car ownership. but still significant. personal car ownership. A key thing. I'm saying is that. we want to unlock. the innovation. of operators. and manufacturers. to keep innovating. and building new products. and I think we're going. to see many things tried. like I raised earlier. the idea of do you. sit in a robotaxi. and face each other. or do you set in the facing. the direction of travel. you know. when you no longer need. to be responsible. for driving. How does a car turn into.

a media or infotainment. space a meeting space. a sleeping space. What are the use cases. Do we see. How do we see the shift in. I mean. I can give you many examples. I'm excited about. speed bumps. You know. when cars all comply. with with the speed limit. and we remove speed bumps. how does that reduce energy. usage of deceleration. and wear. and tear or traffic lights. when we can communicate. between vehicles. more intelligently. and not have to wait. and efficiently. London has.

ten times. the size of Hyde Park. taken up by car parks. When we can turn. those car parks. to green parks well. there's other other examples. real estate. or for example roads. where there's lots of shops. When you remove. car parks on the roadside. you actually see increased. some studies that have shown. you see increased shop. turnover as a result. because it makes the street. more engaging. and interactive. Of course making. it better for vulnerable. for vulnerable. road users on the roads. There's so many examples.

of how. this is going to change. and I think it will be. the most fundamental. change to the. to to transportation. in the cities. that we live in. And then you can. think about the implications. beyond driving. whether that's delivery. or public transport. being able to have smaller. and more frequent. and more personalized public. transport. or autonomy in. You can go beyond that. into manufacturing. care. domestic applications. You know I think ultimately. about 65% of the world's.

GDP is. in physical industries. And I think. AI is going to be able. to bring benefit to this work. just as much as we're seeing. And you know. cognitive and knowledge work. when it comes to. freeing up our time. for what matters most. when it comes to. giving us leverage. over our time. by delegating tasks. to physical machines. and to be able to elevate. what we do. I think. we're going to see this. in a massive way through. the physical world.